Monday, August 5, 2013

the fun never ends

I had a little post planned that I was going to title 'reprise'
because last Thursday, I picked up my twin grandgirls and brought
them out to the country house for a few days while their brother had
surgery and recuperated.

My
grandson was at an untended skate park a week ago last Thursday where
some kid had his 4 year old brother he was supposed to be watching, I
guess, who he wasn't watching and the kid ran out in front of Mikey
who was coming down one of the tall slopes. It was a near miss and
the only reason he didn't plow into the kid was because he reacted
quickly and fell badly, breaking his elbow.

So
last Friday, he had surgery to pin the broken off tip of his elbow
back onto the rest of the bone.

It
was quick, in surgery for only about 30 minutes and he was home the
same day and recovered enough to be picking on his youngest sister
relentlessly.

In
the meantime, the visit with the girls was going well. I was
working, or trying to work, on filling a mold. The girls made dream
catchers and sorted through about 25 years of pictures that didn't
make it into photo albums.

Friday
evening Jade got a headache and went to bed early. She woke up early
Saturday morning with stomach pain and started throwing up. Which
she did all day. We were thinking it was just some sort of 24 hour
thing except the vomiting never decreased in frequency. About 4PM,
the pain shifted and increased in intensity to a sharp stabbing pain
in her lower right abdomen.

No,
no, no.

I
consulted the All Knowing Oracle hoping to dispel my gut feeling that
it was appendicitis. The pain and the nausea I knew but other
symptoms were a low grade fever and inability to pass gas or
constipation. She felt a little warm and a quick check with the
thermometer confirmed a low grade fever and when questioned she said
she had been unable to fart.

Great.

I
called a friend of mine who was, before she retired, a surgical
assistant to get her feel for it, hoping she would tell me I was
being alarmist, but no, what she said was that she felt Jade needed
to go to the ER and while it could be something else it was better to
be over-cautious.

Since
I'm not the parent and didn't have written parental consent for
medical treatment and wouldn't take my worst enemy to the hospital here in Wharton for anything serious, I called my daughter who didn't want or need to
hear this, as, like us, they are part of the uninsured in Texas. But
Sarah is a strong and capable woman who faces things head on and
after the initial shock of another possible surgery for one of her
kids the day after she just went through that with her son, she
gathered her wits and had a plan by the time I arrived with the
girls.

When
she and Jade got to the emergency room about 7:30, they put them in a
room right away and it took the doctor all of 5 minutes to diagnose
the worst. A cat scan confirmed it.

Since
her husband was working second shift and wouldn't be home til late I
spent the night and got the other kids fed and distracted while we
waited for news.

I
went up to the hospital the next morning to sit with Sarah while Jade
was in surgery. In the pre-surgical conference with the doctor, he
told her that Jade had 'acute appendicitis' but that it had not
ruptured. Apparently it had been going bad for a few days as her
white blood cell count was very high indicating that she had been
fighting an infection.

After
the surgery, which lasted about an hour, he came out and talked to
us (with color pictures of Jade's insides). There had been a lot of pus inside and behind her uterus but he
got it all cleaned out, the appendix removed, and they would be
keeping her overnight at the very least.

So
poor Jade has three small incisions with a drain tube. She's grumpy
and in pain, had gone without food since Friday night and they
finally gave her something to eat about 48 hours after her last meal,
if you consider clear liquids and jello a meal.

Sarah
says getting her to the bathroom and back may just kill them both.

On top of the worry and fear a parent faces when a child has surgery, there's the damn bill which will be astronomical. We need a complete sweep and clean of the health care system, don't we?Anyway, I'm glad all went well and she'll recover quickly as kids do but what a horrible experience.